Chef Cutegirl: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Read online

  CHEF CUTEGIRL

  A Sweet Lesbian Romance

  Nicolette Dane

  Copyright © 2016 Nicolette Dane

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All romantically involved characters within this book are consenting adults over the age of 18 and are not related by blood. All rights reserved.

  About The Author

  Nicolette Dane landed in Chicago after studying writing in New York City. She flitted in and out of various jobs until she decided to choose herself and commit to writing full-time. Nico most enjoys writing about young sapphic love. Her stories are realistic scenarios of blossoming lesbian romance and voyeuristic tales meant to give you a bit of a peep show into the lives of sensual and complicated young women. Be sure to check out Nico’s Amazon Author Profile for more lesbian romance!

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  Table Of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  An Excerpt From: Sweetheart Starlet

  An Excerpt From: Dormitory Dearest

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  Psst... Look Back Here

  ONE

  *

  I REALLY COULDN’T believe it. After going through the rigorous audition process, which included multiple interviews, references from people I had worked with, and a number of kitchen demos, I had actually made the cut. I was offered a spot on Hot Chef, the most well-known cooking competition show in all of reality television. I mean, this was the big time. Chefs who won the title of Hot Chef went on to open their own restaurants and build their own empires. Even chefs who didn’t win often hit the big time, getting their own television shows and cookbooks. Hot Chef was a career-maker and I was going to be on it. Mind… blown.

  And the best part? This season was going to be filmed in my hometown of Chicago. I didn’t even have to travel. I had home field advantage. I knew the culinary world in my city. The scales were tipped in my favor. This was going to be Emily Gold’s time to shine. I was determined to win.

  You might have heard the name Emily Gold and thought, oh yeah, she’s head chef at Maison du Faisan in Chicago. She’s been featured in the Sun-Times as a young chef to watch, the 30 best chefs under 30. She was number 17. And, yeah, Maison won a James Beard award with Emily at the helm.

  No biggie, right? Actually, it was a biggie. It was exciting and thrilling and it made me so happy that my culinary career was really taking off. I had worked so hard for this, starting as a dishwasher when I was only 13 years old. And now, at 30, I was going to be on television, competing on Hot Chef, trying to make my face, my name, and my food known throughout the country.

  It was a dream come true. I had cooked my ass off, given up so much. The hardest thing to give up in my mad career chase was my love life. As a chef, you work tirelessly. We’re talking a lot of 18 hours days. And as the head chef of a popular restaurant, it’s even more difficult to maintain any semblance of a social or romantic life. Your world revolves around the restaurant. Most of the time, people in the restaurant world, chefs and front of the house alike, get involved with one another. Hey, you’re at work so much and you really only interact with this small group of other people. It can get incestuous. You start to factor people out of being a potential partner because they dated someone you dated last year. It’s a small world when it comes down to it, and it’s just a bit smaller when you’re a lesbian like me.

  The cooking world is very male dominated. Lots of bravado and all that. Lots of sexism. Lots of male chefs think they’re hot shit and that you, as a woman, will just drop your panties at even the hint that they might want to screw you. No, sorry boys, I don’t play for your team. My type is the cute and innocent waif. The Audrey Hepburn type. Not some hairy-chested, burly idiot. And there are a lot of hairy, burly idiots in restaurant life. Ugh. Avoid.

  But, on the same token, I don’t mind working with guys like this because they’ve got a lot to prove and they work hard because of it. It’s a cutthroat vocation. You don’t get promoted to a head chef position by navel gazing. And, as a woman, if you want to make it to head chef you have to work even harder. We have to prove ourselves double what the guys have to do, we have to withstand all the sexism, slimy owners, lack of respect from the male chefs. It’s messed up. But if you love doing this, if you love cooking and creating and making people happy, you’ll do anything to make the job work for you.

  I knew that being on Hot Chef was going to propel me into something even greater than I had ever imagined. As long as I, you know, didn’t get eliminated early. You never remember those chefs. It’s a field of 17 chefs and you know from watching, just as well as I do, that you don’t really start rooting for someone until it’s down to 8 or so. That’s when the world starts paying attention. That’s where careers start being made.

  Although I’d watched every season of the show, I still didn’t know what to expect. So much of it is edited for TV, of course, and it just appears so fluid and seamless. Like, how much would I really be cooking? What order do they film stuff? What about the little individual interview segments with the chefs? Is that before or after they get eliminated? It wasn’t just cooking I was concerned with, I knew I could do that well, but the whole role of being a reality television persona is what gave me a bit of anxiety. I didn’t want to look like a total idiot.

  You know the people. If you’ve watched a show like Hot Chef before, you know that there’s always a couple clueless weirdos, maybe someone who’s full of themselves and just says the most egotistical things constantly. You wonder… are they going to watch this all later and see what a fool they were? But my guess is that if it’s so easy for you to look that foolish on national television then, well, you probably won’t recognize your foolishness when you see it before you on screen.

  And what about the judges? I’d always go back and forth as to whether or not I thought they were nice or not. Sometimes Tim Cicerone, famed chef and restauranteur, would come off as a total teddy bear. And other times it was like he had a stick up his ass, his bald head growing red because some chef over-steamed their broccoli. “If you can’t cook broccoli properly,” Tim would say. “What makes you think you can do foie gras in 3 hours?”

  Next to Tim was always Pema Sharma, former model, tall and buxom, Indian goddess. Pema was the host of the show and while she wasn’t a chef herself, she knew food and could critique the hell out of you. I had to admit that I was quite eager to meet Pema because she was so hot. Like, stupidly hot. You know everybody drooled over her. I’m sure even the straight girls wouldn’t turn down a night with her. But I don’t think anybody could handle it, male or female. Pema would wreck you at Chop Block and then turn around and wreck you in the bedroom.

  I’ve probably played that scenario out too many times in my head.

  It was just so funny to me to have this opportunity, to began daydreaming of what the experience would be like. It’s so easy to sit back on your couch, watch the show, judge the chef contestants for doing something this way, or not doing something that way. But I knew that when I was actually in their place, I was going to le
arn firsthand what these people had to go through to succeed in the various challenges the show threw their way. And while I psyched myself up and tried to prepare as much as possible for all the cooking challenges I knew I’d face, I had no clue that I would encounter an even bigger challenge while on the show.

  That challenge was Raina.

  *

  The group of us, all 17 chefs, filed into the Hot Chef kitchen for the very first time. We had only met an hour prior backstage, sitting around introducing ourselves, bragging of our accomplishments. The kitchen was a television set just like you’d expect. The back wall lined with stainless steel appliances, the cooking stations bisecting the stage, the large food pantry and refrigerators in back. Looking out from where we stood was just black studio space, complete with cameras and all the various crew members who worked on the show. The lights shining down from the rafters were warm and bright and even though we were most certainly in a working kitchen, it just didn’t feel like a kitchen. It was something else entirely.

  “One more time,” said Dale Porter, one of the shows producers and someone we would all come to know well. He was in his 40s, thinning hair slicked back, looked kind of ratlike. “I want to get one more shot of the chefs walking in. Chefs,” he said, addressing us. “Don’t look so stiff. Relax, have fun, smile.” With that, Dale put on a big cheesy smile. “And this time we’re going to roll. Pema and Tim will be coming out, okay?” When Dale said this, the entire group of chefs sucked the air out of the room.

  As we all started to turn around to do our walkout one more time, Dale reached out and grabbed a young, pretty-looking girl from the line. She had slight features, innocent, she almost looked as though she were an elf. Her chef uniform fit her just a tad bit too big.

  “You,” said Dale. “What’s your name?”

  “Raina,” she said softly, pushing a finger through a tendril of her fine light brown hair, tucking it behind her ear. This girl was endearingly meek, so heartbreakingly cute, and the kind of girl you knew just wasn’t going to make it very far in this difficult competition.

  “Raina,” repeated Dale. “You’re cute. I want you walking out first. All right?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  With this direction, a couple of the other chefs scoffed. They had spent their careers under the impression that what mattered most was the food on the plate. But here in TV land, production wanted the cute girl up front.

  We all stood backstage, trying to settle our nerves as we knew we were about to meet Pema and Tim for the first time. Raina stood up front, looking down at her small feet, waiting for her cue. I was somewhere in back, peeking down the line, feeling my heart race. It was really happening. This was the very first scene for us filming the latest season of Hot Chef.

  Dale stood with us, looking out onto the stage, adjusting a headset over his ears, waiting for the director’s signal. He looked over to Raina and grinned.

  “I think you’re going to do good,” he said matter-of-factly. “Just listen to me.”

  Raina gave him a bit of a confused look. Her pale face scrunched slightly and her light pink lips pursed.

  “All right,” said Dale loudly, addressing us all. “We’re rolling. Look alive. Loosen up. This is it.”

  Raina just stood there, front of the line, feet planted.

  “Okay Raina,” said Dale, giving her back a light push. “Let’s do it.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Raina, beginning her walk. The rest of us followed behind her.

  This time, as we walked on stage, considering Dale’s direction to ease up, we were all flabbergasted to see Pema waiting for us off to one side. And standing next to her was Tim Cicerone. The two of them grinned widely as we entered, each one of us unable to suppress our giddiness. I looked around the kitchen as I entered, as if really seeing it for the first time. This was real. This was really happening. There were three stationary cameras pointed at us as well as a handful of cameramen walking around the set, capturing shots of us.

  We lined up on one side of the stage, as we had been instructed, all of us immensely excited for the competition to come. Leaning out, I looked down the collection of chefs, taking in the reality of the entire thing. My eyes caught suddenly with Raina’s, causing both of us to look away and back toward Tim and Pema.

  “Hello chefs,” said Tim. He offered us a knowing smile. He’d been in this position many times before. “We’re happy to welcome you to the Hot Chef kitchen for the very first time. Next to me is a woman who really needs no introduction. Pema?” he said, turning to Pema to let her have the reigns.

  “Chefs, we are thrilled to have you all here on Season 15 of Hot Chef in the midwestern home of fabulous American cuisine… Chicago!” said Pema, offering us a clap to incite a bit of enthusiasm out of us. We all cheered and hooted and applauded.

  “As I’m sure you’ve all discovered about each other by now,” continued Tim. “We’ve got an amazing collection of culinary talent this year and it’s going to make for some pretty intense competition. A lot of Michelin Stars and James Beard Awards in this room right now.”

  We all looked around at each other, summing up our competition.

  “But don’t let all the talent blind you,” said Tim. “One mistake and you could be chopped at the Chop Block.”

  “Lucky for you chefs we have Rebound Kitchen,” interjected Pema.

  “Right,” said Tim. “All eliminated chefs will get one last shot in Rebound Kitchen. And the winner of Rebound Kitchen will get a crack at the finals. So keep your knives sharp.”

  “It’s going to be an amazing season,” said Pema. “And I think we should just get right to it with a Speed Chop.”

  “One thing, Pema,” said Tim. “This first Speed Chop is also going to be Cutthroat Challenge,” he said. “Which means one of the chefs standing here is going to be eliminated today.”

  When Tim said that I felt my stomach sink. All the other chefs looked frazzled and distraught. To come this far and be eliminated on the very first challenge, it would be so devastating.

  “For this Speed Chop,” continued Tim. “We want you to showcase not only skill, but also technique. Make sure all your cuts look good, your plating perfect. If you don’t show us an absolutely perfect dish, well, you just might be packing your bags before they’re even unpacked.”

  “Chefs,” said Pema, taking her cue. “There are no rules for this Speed Chop. You’ll have 30 minutes. We want to see a dish that defines you, a dish you love and can execute well. There are no limitations and you have full use of the Hot Chef pantry.”

  “Get ready, chefs,” said Tim. “Your time begins… now!”

  Tim brought his arm down to give us our cue, as Dale had told us he would, and everybody instantly went into crazy mode. The chefs were running around the kitchen, trying to pick a good cooking station to claim with their knives, and then we all ran off to the pantry to shore up our ingredients. At that point, the entire thing was a blur to me.

  When you have such a short amount of time to accomplish something that could make or break you, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. You simply focus and let yourself slip into autopilot. As past shows had shown us, we all knew that this first Speed Chop would be a free for all and had considered what we’d make before even stepping foot on the stage. I was making a snapper crudo with a tomato and caper salad. I had made it a thousand times before. I knew I wouldn’t make any mistakes in my execution.

  If you think 30 minutes goes by fast when you’re just standing around, to say it’s quick when doing a cooking challenge is an understatement. I couldn’t imagine what any of the other chefs were thinking because I didn’t even have time to consider that there were other chefs. Once Pema called time, I looked up from my station, saw everyone just standing behind their dishes, some smiling, some frowning, the nervousness in the room palpable. This was all going to be much more difficult than I thought.

  And before I could even think another thought, Tim and Pema were standing in fr
ont of me with mild smiles on their faces.

  “Hello,” said Tim. “And you are?”

  “Emily,” I said, feeling my hands shake. “It’s amazing to meet you, Chef,” I said to Tim with a nod. “And you, Pema.”

  “What have you prepared for us, Emily?” asked Pema in an indolent tone.

  “I have prepared a Pacific snapper crudo with a caper, tomato, and pickled asparagus salad with a little bit of lime zest,” I said, finally feeling like I could let my breath out. Both Pema and Tim began picking at my dish, taking small bites.

  “A crudo, huh?” said Tim, his eyes looking up to me as he inspected my dish. “Do you think that’s playing it a little safe?”

  “Well, maybe,” I admitted. “But crudos always seem to win.” Tim gave me a little laugh.

  “Thank you, Emily,” said Pema with a smile. Neither of them let on how they felt about my dish at all.

  I knew I had done well. My crudo looked awesome. I was, in my mind, safe from elimination at the very least. All I could do was watch the rest of the chefs writhe when their turn to be judged came up.

  After Tim and Pema had tasted everyone’s dishes, they walked to the front and looked toward us. While the whole ordeal had taken less than an hour, I felt absolutely drained as I’m sure all the other chefs felt as well. It was a brand new experience having to compete like this and being face to face with your judges takes a lot out of you. It makes you question your own abilities. Like, am I good enough to be here? There were some pretty talented people in the room.

  “Chefs,” said Tim. “We asked you to give us a signature dish and we weren’t disappointed. There was a lot of skill, technique and ability shown here today. Pema, who were some of our favorites?”